Dissolving Math Word Problems

Everyone is a genius. 

But if you judge a fish by his ability to climb a tree, he will live his whole life believinghe is stupid.

Albert Einstein

I've seen this quote twice this week.  Each time I thought - that's the one I need to post - I've felt like a few of those fish in my lifetime.

An interesting day. 

First, I missed school today to attend a district workshop on the importance of vocabulary.  It was an informative workshop and I walked away with quite a few ideas.  My thoughts wondered throughout the workshop to how I might incorporate the new concepts and ideas and how I might change them to fit within my WBT framework.  I always love learning new stuff and ways of approaching teaching and the presenter was well informed and quite experienced.  All in all, a positive learning day.

Then, I came home and began the Halloween countdown, ate dinner with the family and then settled in to my WBT weekly webinar.  It amazes me each week how I walk away from those sessions, which are usually under an hour, and feel stuffed with ideas.  I'm grateful each week for the WBT community and their enthusiasm.  Not only do I end the session anxious to go to work the following day so I can implement it, I somehow also leave hungering for more, impatiently waiting  for next week's session.

Now on to math. Math can be scary, uncomfortable and overwhelming. I've seen students shut down before they even begin.  I think part of it might be the fact that if you don't keep up with math - it somehow gets ahead of you and you feel like you are always playing catch up.  If you miss some big chunk - you feel lost from that point onward.

When students are given math word problems, they are being asked to complete three seperate skill sets that isolated can be challenging.  Together, reading comprehension, problem solving and math facts, must logically intertwine and crest together to bring perfect understanding and ability to tackle the problem.  That crescendo moment happens rarely if not properly preparing students how to take down their math monsters.  We must teach them the isolated skill sets they need and then teach them how to bring them together so they know what is being asked of them (reading comprehension), what to do (problem solving) and how to answer the problem (math facts).

In this week's broadcast, number 534, Coach Biffle walks us through a series of steps that we need to teach in order for kids to be successful with math word problems.  The first of these is knowing what is being asked.

Begin by having students paraphrase the question and state it in a dramatic way.  Students cannot paraphrase if they don't understand what the text says.  It is an excellent way for math partners to work together to make sure they understand.  By incorporating the dramatic effect, they are having fun and staying engaged.  Not the usual math class.  We need to give students plenty of opportunities to practice paraphrasing word problems in a dramatic way.  This alone is an isolated skill that needs to be mastered.  In the beginning, don't worry about having them answer the problem.  Just practice learning how to read the problem. 

Once students feel successful with this concept, have them identify the key numbers.  We need to slow kids down on word problems and just by identifying the key numbers, it will help them identify the operation and will make more sense when attempting to solve the question. 

Next, students will need to identify the key words.  This can be done by finding the key words or, the same skill can be practiced by asking students to mark out everything that is not a key word.  I can't wait to try that.  It will make them think twice before marking words out as they won't want to mark out what they might still need.  It's an excellent way to identify what is important.

The operation must be identified and steps taken to answer it (problem solving).  By putting the operation  in the forefront of your thought process, you are being clear about what your next step will be.  After identifying the operation, students are ready to move on and solve the problem (math facts).  They need to be able to explain their answer and to be confident in what they have done and the best way to ensure this is to have students complete the final step and that is to prove it. 

We talk a lot about inverse operations and if it is an addition problem, they can prove it through subtraction and vice versa.  If it's a division operation they are working on, then they can use the inverse operation of multiplication to prove it.  Either way, they must prove their answer.

If we can teach kids these steps and to really use them, they will feel more confident in bringing together all that they know and be successful.  I can't think of any part of my schooling history that I hated more than math word problems and I hope to dissolve that apprehension and fear  for my students.  If I can make word problems easier, I am making learning easier for there won't be any other challenge asking as much of them as math word problems will.

Here is the link to Coach's webinar on Dissolving Math Word Problems.  I highly recommend it!  You will be as excited as I to bring his great ideas to your classroom.

http://wholebrainteaching.com/

Scroll about half way down the screen to video library and select program 543.  Enjoy!

Bells